Vang Vieng in Laos has had a reputation for dangerous partying for over a decade and attempts to reform the town’s tourist offering have clearly failed, writes Laura Hill
Over a decade ago, I visited the party town of Vang Vieng in Laos, where tragedy struck in recent days with the deaths of six tourists linked to methanol poisoning. Even back then the town was known as a hot-spot for drinking and partying for young people.
A mecca for young backpackers, the main attraction in 2011 was tipsy tubing, which involved floating down the river in an old truck inner tyre, stopping off at the half-dozen bars along the way. Super-strength cocktails were served in buckets, and home-made whisky shots were handed out for free at the makeshift bars, which had been precariously built along the river close to town.
Horror stories of people injuring themselves, or worse, on the river were shared among backpackers, but still, hundreds of tourists lined up every morning to spend the day partying on the river. A friend from school had visited the town a few months earlier and posted on Facebook photos of horrific injuries he’d suffered when he hit his head on a rock after jumping from a rope swing into the murky river.
That didn’t deter me though, and I was eager to stop off in the infamous small town on my trip. Upon arrival, I was reminded of the ‘strips’ in Magaluf and Zante, though on a smaller scale. The tiny main street was a series of large, neon-lit bars serving cocktails alongside ‘happy menus’ which offered a range of illegal drugs from mushroom shakes to opium joints. Bartenders casually encouraged customers to try the ‘happy menus’ despite Laos’s strict drug laws, which still include the death penalty.
The plan for the day was to hire an inner tube, jump on the back of one of a dozen vans ferrying hundreds of young people a few miles out of town and float down the Nam Song River, stopping at bars on the way. Lifejackets were not available at the time I visited.
When I collected the inner tube, I had to sign a disclaimer document written entirely in Laos. The staff then numbered the document with the corresponding number drawn on my hand in permanent marker: ‘So we know who you are if we find you,’ they joked. Looking back, I shudder at how easily I shrugged off this clear warning sign and hit the bars.
The tubing should have taken three hours, with stops at bars along the way, but after underestimating the strength of the homemade whisky, I found myself stranded miles from town, freezing cold in the dark before being rescued and ferried back to town where the parties went on until the early hours.
It wasn’t until after I realised how lethal the town’s main tourist attraction could be. Vang Vieng’s tiny hospital recorded 27 tourist deaths in 2011 due to drowning or diving head-first into rocks, the Guardian reported at the time.
In 2012, just one year after I visited the Laos government staged a clampdown on safety. Travel bloggers said that many of the bars were closed, and those that re-opened had a strict set of rules with no more rope swings and just a few bars open at a time.
The safety measures around the river tubing clearly did not extend more widely. Recent reviews of Vang Vieng suggest that despite this attempt to clean up its image, the reputation as a hard-partying hotspot remained. Revellers share photos of the ‘Happy Menus’ which are still available in the bars and praise the wild night outs on the town’s strip.
The ‘free shots’ I remember being liberally handed out have remained as a selling point for the bars, with devastating consequences. Clearly the lessons of the early 2010s have been long-forgotten, as Vang Vieng finds itself again associated with the death of young travellers.
Backpackers who are looking to enjoy themselves shouldn’t be pushed into risking their lives. I fear nothing has changed, and travellers’ lives will continue to be put at risk by unscrupulous people hoping to attract as many tourists as possible with no regard for the safety and wellbeing of the mainly young people passing through the town on the South East Asia backpacker trail.
After so many lives have been lost, it’s time for Vang Vieng to call time on the party.
